


And oh my friend remind me, what was it that I did?

by equivalencept



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equivalencept/pseuds/equivalencept
Summary: Caleb explains how his memory gap is different from Yasha’s. But she only starts to see more similarities.





	And oh my friend remind me, what was it that I did?

“Caleb?” Yasha knocked on the door frame to the library in their new...abode, as the Shadowhand had called it.

 

Caleb looked up from where he was sitting cross-legged in front of a bookshelf, a small stack of books placed neatly besides him.

 

“Oh, Yasha! Come in, how are you finding the place?”

 

Entering the room, she responded, “Well, uh, it wasn’t difficult. The Shadowhand led us right here. Uh, sorry. Bad joke.” Caleb was smiling up at her though, so after a moment she sat down next to him.

 

She pointed to a book on the shelf in front of her. “That’s in Abyssal.”

 

“ _Ja_. I do not have the proper spell prepared today, so I cannot read it, but I am picking out the interesting books I _can_ read. I might look at them tonight, after I am done transcribing the teleportation circle spell.” 

 

He went back to sorting. Yasha was the first to break the awkward-but-not silence that so often happened between the two of them.

 

“Nott said you also had gaps in your memory?”

 

Caleb froze for a moment, before closing the book he was flipping through. “Ah, _ja_. Sort of. It is not like the memory gap as you described it, or that Fjord has. And certainly not like Mollymauk’s.”

 

Yasha pushed through the grief, the thoughts of _coward-it-happened-again_ , that always accompanied her old friend’s name, and asked, “How so?”

 

Caleb was looking at her now, but was not quite meeting her eyes. “You and Fjord - and I do not mean to be too frank here - from what you both have said, you have absolutely no idea of what happened. I know what happened in that time, I just don’t remember it. You know?”

 

“I...can’t say that I do, no.”

 

“It’s like - ah. It’s like when you are walking somewhere, and you are lost in thought, and you look up and suddenly you are at your destination. You do not really remember your walk there, because your mind was elsewhere, and you can’t recall any specific details of what happened on that walk, but you know more or less what must have transpired. Am I clear?”

 

“I think I know what you mean. Yes.” Yasha had never gotten lost in thought while traveling, because to do so was to open herself up to an attack, but she thought she knew what Caleb meant. There were times where an activity was so familiar to her, like skinning an animal, that she did not even think about what she was doing.

 

“My memory gap is like that. It is not like yours or Fjord’s, where you have no idea what happened. I know what must have happened, but if you ask for details, I cannot give them. It’s more like my memory of that time is very foggy, rather than completely gone. And, ah. My memory gap is a bit longer than either yours or Fjord’s.”

 

Yasha might have months of blank memories. “How long was your gap?”

 

Caleb was definitely not meeting her eyes now. “About eleven years. Eleven years and one month and two days, to be exact.”

 

Yasha was taken aback. “What happened?”

 

When it seemed like Caleb wasn’t going to respond, she almost repeated his words from yesterday back at him. _If it’s a sore subject we do not need to push it._ But then he answered. “Back in Felderwin, when I said I ‘went a bit crazy’, that was not, ah, hyperbole. I did something terrible.” _Yes, I murdered those most dear to me_ , he’d told Beau in front of her. _I think I did something terrible_ , she’d told Jester and Caduceus and Nott. “The worst - well, I’m sure the worst thing I ever did is up for debate.” _Orphanmaker_ , the Sky Spear had named her, the horned man had called her. “But this thing that I did, it broke me. I was put in an asylum for those eleven years. Eventually a, a woman removed the fog from my mind. Then I ran.”

 

She’d run, too. “I am sorry, Caleb. That is a lot of lost time.”

 

“ _Ja_ , well.” He finally looked up at her again. “I am not the only person in this group to have lost time.”

 

“Have you tried to get those memories back? Do you know how you would?”

 

“Not really. I know what happened in those years. I was in a room. People fed me, cleaned me, tried to treat me. Shaved my head to keep the lice away. Things like that. I do not have any desire to regain that time in perfect recollection.”

 

“Oh.” Yasha turned to look at the bookshelf again, as Caleb turned back to sorting. After a few minutes, she heard him stop flipping through pages.

 

“Ah, Yasha? Would you like to regain your lost memories?”

 

Yasha turned back to him, and he met her eyes. It seemed easier for him to do when the conversation wasn’t focused on him. She could relate. “I don’t know.” _I think I did something terrible._ “I would like to know whether it is possible, though.”

 

Another long pause while Caleb thought. “There is a spell I know of, that can be used to change or remove people’s memories. I have never heard of it being used for weeks or months at a time, though. But if it is the same spell - which honestly I do not think it is - but if it _is_ , then I believe Caduceus and Jester can undo it. We can ask them.”

 

She gave a small smile. “It is always worth asking, at least in this group.” Caleb nodded.

 

Another silence as Caleb turned back to the bookshelf, this one less awkward than the first. Yasha pointed to the book in Abyssal she had mentioned earlier. “I can translate the Abyssal titles, if you want to know if they sound interesting or not.”

 

“Yes, that sounds excellent. Thank you.”

 

In a little bit they’d go and talk to the clerics, but for now Yasha read and Caleb sorted, making a new, good memory to stack against the missing ones.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Title is a lyric from Florence + the Machine's Ship to Wreck, modified to make it platonic.


End file.
